1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus, such as a silver-halide film camera, a digital camera, and a digital video camera, which includes a zoom type lens barrel configured to change a shooting magnification by moving between a storage position and a shooting position along an optical axis.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a type of an imaging apparatus including a zoom type lens barrel, such as a digital camera, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-122640 discusses an imaging apparatus including a reflection optical element, such as a prism, which guides light flux incident thereto from a plurality of lens units into an image sensor by bending the light flux in a direction intersecting with an optical axis to achieve a small size lens barrel. In the zoom lens discussed in the above-described conventional apparatus, a light flux incident from a first lens unit is bent in a direction substantially perpendicular to a light-incident optical axis (i.e., in a direction towards the image sensor) by using a reflection optical element, such as a prism, which is arranged in a rear portion of the first lens unit of the lens barrel.
Even if the size of the first lens unit arranged on the light flux-incident optical axis is large, it is desired by the market to provide a camera having a thin body by reducing the dimension of the camera in the direction of the light-incidence optical axis in a lens barrel retracted state. However, a guide shaft, which guides a member on a second optical axis, may become a bottleneck against the reduction of the size of an imaging apparatus body because the guide shaft may interfere with a member arranged on the first optical axis during the lens barrel storage operation.
However, if it is desired to provide a member arranged on an outer surface of the apparatus, such as an operation unit, and an image sensor in a state in which the member and the image sensor are mutually overlapped on a plane perpendicular to a second optical axis in the direction of the second optical axis, it may become difficult to reduce the thickness of the imaging apparatus. This is because the member arranged on the outer surface of the apparatus, such as the operation unit, and the sensor plate, which holds the image sensor, such as a charge-coupled device (CCD) sensor or a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor, may interfere with each other in the direction of a first optical axis on the back side of the imaging apparatus (i.e., opposite side of the incident side of the object image).